They found the Hokage cleaning her nails in the middle of a large rubble strewn area that hadn't been so rubble strewn before the battle. She was sitting on a large rock, and gently gave a sad sigh as she surveyed her hands.
Shizune stood by her master, subtly attempting to check her for injuries as the older woman checked her nails.
"Would you look at that Shizune."
The younger woman sighed.
"What is wrong Tsunade-sama?"
"The bastard chipped one of my nails a little, look."
She looked. The chip was minute in size.
"Tsunade-sama, you just defeated an S-ranked missing nin from Suna, you're covered in blood and you're worried about your nails?"
Tsunade stared at her student then they both burst out laughing.
"It wasn't just me that defeated him, the ANBU helped as well as Shikaku Nara. You'd have to be an idiot to attack Konoha when it is full of elite shinobi. What were our losses?"
Shizune checked the report the commander had written.
"Half a dozen ANBU, seventeen chunin, five genin and around 50 civilians. The majority of the casualties were caused by the bomber who was led away from the city. A further hundred or so people injured, four critically. Fortunately the hospital is coping with the injuries."
Tsunade sighed, the elation of victory ebbing away at the casualty list.
"Return to the hospital and help out there. I have to find out what happened to that bomber."
Then Naruto, Anko and Team Eight came into view.
"Or it could find me. Anko, what the hell happened?"
Anko gestured to the body on Akamaru's back.
"That's the bomber. Darkie-kun lead him into my forest and killed him."
Tsunade put her head in her palms. Of course. Somehow he would get sucked into this. He was just defending Konoha.
"Why and how did you attack him? I recall him being on some sort of dragon in the air."
"I got his attention by shooting at him and decided to lead him away from the city. Then he followed and Anko-chan prevented him from killing me. After that, he attempted to escape and Team 8 assisted me in attempting to capture him."
Tsunade eyed the body.
"It take it that failed?"
"Indeed."
Then Shino and Naruto looked at each other with the realisation they had spoken at the same time. Kiba burst out laughing. Tsunade smiled.
"Too much to do now for a debrief. I need to be at the hospital, Team 8, take that body to T&I, then you have the rest of the day off, Naruto if you perform any more active duty without my permission I will have you restrained to a hospital bed within moments. Write a mission report then do something that doesn't involve you nearly dying."
That was clear then. Tsunade set off to the hospital in a cloud of dust, a couple of ANBU rising behind her.
Shino gave Naruto a brief nod and lead his team off with the body. That left only Naruto and Anko.
Naruto subconsciously rubbed his shoulder and found it hurt more than usual. He hid the pain; he'd need to find out what it was. However, Anko had seen him rub his arm.
"Anything wrong with your arm Darkie-kun?"
"No."
She smiled.
"I've heard a thousand guys say that. Let me see it."
He couldn't escape, and shrugged back his cloak. Anko gently poked his shoulder and a small spike of pain was caused.
"That looks swollen, in fact."
She gave his arm a much less friendly jab. Naruto couldn't help but give a small twinge in his facial expression. She gave him a stern look.
"Did that guy break your shoulder and you just carried on like nothing happened?"
He reflected. Certainly he had taken a hard shot there, and his arm had ached a bit during the mission. It was possible.
"It seems like a possibility."
Anko sighed.
"I'm taking you to the hospital. Besides, you and I need to have a chat."
"If I try to escape?"
"I break your other shoulder."
Well she had her persuasive ways. The inconvenience of two broken shoulders would be excessive, and the benefits of a well patched shoulder would do him good.
He let her half lead half push him towards the hospital. She gave his cheek a little pat and giggled. It was a scary sound somehow.
"Awwh, he's got cute blonde face hair. That does make you look a little bit older though, but it's too fluffy to be dignified."
He gave his face a rub with his good arm. It was slightly fluffy. He would need to shave.
"Anyway, how did you poison the Uchiha in his base?"
He felt they were fortunately nobody had heard that. From what he had surmised, the Uchiha had been popular for his clan's status.
"A ten part poison. Had to get him to form a catalyst that was absorbed into the walls of his small intestine, which took 3 parts. Then I tested with a small amount of uncooked meat. Then I needed to get another to absorb. Then I just needed to feed him the right balance of foods. I infiltrated the kitchens when I could."
She nodded.
"Well that outdoes anything I've ever done. Nice job. Then again, ten parts. Presumably needed to be that circuitous to get around medical checks by his medical staff. How was it in there?"
He shivered as his side burnt a little more. He put a hand to it; the pain was definitely the wrong side of uncomfortable. Anko noticed this too.
"Your side too? He really did a number on you."
Naruto nodded. It was true. He could feel a number of bruises on parts of his body, and the fact he had coughed blood meant that he had some internal bleeding.
"But was it hard? Lonely? It must have been tense in there."
"I completed my mission. I did what needed to be done."
He knew the instant the words left his mouth that it wouldn't sound like him. He had turned away too. All the little things he'd never needed to worry about, his instincts to hide himself socially and never to trust too deeply had been eroded by years alone. He realised he craved conversation more than ever.
It was not his place. He needed someone to talk to. He needed counsel.
He realised that Tsunade had been right all along. She had known.
Anko patted him on his good shoulder as they approached the hospital.
"Talk to me if you need to ok? Now I need to find a dango shop. Victory meal!"
She punched the air, did the weird blowing gesture at him and galloped off into Konoha, scattering people in her wake.
Naruto looked up at the building in front of him and found himself needing to breath. He had to do what had to be done. He sighed and pushed open the hospital door.
A few minutes later he found himself in a treatment room. Apparently shinobi injuries went to a different area of the hospital to civilian ones. He pondered why as he waited for his doctor to arrive.
Certainly shinobi injuries were likely to be more dangerous and horrifying than civilian ones. Nobody got stabbed by katanas or hit by large scale jutsu when they were civilians. They only had to deal with broken bones and the occasional criminal injury.
He considered the shinobi themselves. Were they unwilling to face treatment before civilians? Possibly an issue of pride. He could conceive of a strong ninja unwilling to show weakness before others because he did not want to appear weak. His motivation for hiding injuries was different.
Was chakra an issue? Whilst all living things did generate some chakra, was the larger quantities possessed by shinobi more important than he thought? His knowledge of medical techniques was minimal after all.
It might well have been an issue of morale? After all, the shinobi were the face of the village, an example of the people protecting the villagers. At least the visible ones were, Root and ANBU hid because what they did was more dangerous and darker. If they saw their finest warrior bleeding they might get worried.
A civilian uprising meant doom for any hidden village.
His musing was interrupted by his doctor entering the room. It was Shizune, who smiled when she saw him.
"Ah, Naruto. Tsunade-sama said you'd got into a bit of bother fighting an S-rank nin. Anyone else I would call and idiot. Actually I would to. Now, what injuries are you aware of whilst I scan you? Take off your shirt."
He did so, and realised that it was covered in small tears. Her hand, glowing a bluish green, travelled over his upper body and she gently tsked at various things.
"Broken shoulder, bruises, internal bleeding that might have stopped."
Shizune stopped her scan.
"Are you immune to pain? As in do you actually feel pain?"
"Yes. It is unpleasant but overly focussing on it isn't an advantage in battle."
She nodded.
"Ok, can rule out that disorder then. Yes you can ignore it, but there is a limit. Do you know the extent of your injuries right now? No you do not. Let me list it for you. Multiple cuts along your back, looks like tree bark rub."
That was a possibility, he was faintly aware of hitting a tree at some stage.
"Broken shoulder and fractured fibula on your left arm, which probably means you didn't notice whist using your crossbow."
That was true.
"Your chest is more black and blue than pale skin."
He looked. It appeared that it was. The fist imprints were very obvious. Apparently the man he had been fighting was proficient at taijutsu and quite strong.
"Be thankful he wasn't aiming for your face with his attacks. He probably wanted you to be able to talk afterwards."
She was very logical. He found himself appreciating this more and more as she spoke in matter of fact sort of way.
"You have a punctured lung."
That was unexpected.
"Fortunately it's a small puncture and the bone fragment from your slightly splintered breastbone is plugging it. It'll be tricky to extract, we'll need to operate. It'll also help us mend you more."
Well the fractured bone certainly explained the chest pain.
"Now. Take off your pants and don't be shy. I need to scan your legs, and I want full resolution from this so your pants have to come off."
He took them off, leaving him in only his underwear. He wasn't too bothered by this. This was a medical situation and Shizune was a professional.
She scanned his legs and thighs with care.
"Hmm, nothing here but a few scratches and, why am I not surprised, even more bruising. You can put the pants back on, and your shirt too."
She turned away as he did, then scanned his head.
"Huh, that's odd."
"What is?"
"You have a brain. I was expecting you to just be utterly stupid enough not to have one."
He felt a touch insulted that she would make such a rookie mistake.
"You can tell I at least have a motor cortex and hippocampus. You have observed my memory and movement. It is therefore reasonably to assume the remainder of..."
"Shut up and pay attention. You should not fight till you are in this condition. You realise what could have happened with that bone fragment in your lung? A slightly harder hit and you would have died. Maybe a bit more running it could have got loose and gone into your brain. You reckless idiot."
She brought out a syringe.
"You need an anti-body shot to make sure nothing in your cuts was infectious. A precaution and nothing more. Then we can work on your physical injuries, then the mental ones."
He accepted the injection with an outstretched arm. With that done, she disposed of the needle and pressed a button on a wall panel.
"Could I get a set of restraints for room 207?"
"Restraints?"
She gave him a small smile.
"For you. Enforced bed rest."
He tried to get up his limbs felt a little heavier. He felt the drug taking effect.
"Did you inject me with...with a sedative?"
"Yep."
There was a knock at the door. She smiled at him as his vision blurred a little.
"Lie down and sleep ok? Ah here are my restrai..."
The silence was quite sudden. With a last look, he saw Sakura in the doorway, staring at him with wide eyes.
His interest in this new development suddenly ended when the drug shut down his systems and sent him into a dreamless sleep.
Itachi moved quietly through the Akatsuki base. Not that there was a real need to, but he liked to keep himself to himself.
He was deep in thought. Sasori and Deidara were dead, of that he had no doubt. Pain had sent the wrong people into Konoha.
Deidara wasn't a thinker, and he wasn't an interrogation specialist. In fact, he was good at large scale assaults and the like. Sending him to get information had been a foolish endeavour. Then again, Akatsuki was too skewed away from information gatherers. Only Zetsu truly excelled at it, but he couldn't capture an enemy.
Sasori could have been useful, but it was likely that he could get overwhelmed by numbers. His poisons could only do so much against a city with the best medical teams in the elemental nations.
He pondered all of it in his mind.
What would his next move be? Certainly he had to play his hand carefully. Pain could not succeed, Akatsuki could not succeed. But Naruto had to pay with his life. He could not get his vengeance for the loss of all he held dear until Akatsuki had been stopped. He had to make sure.
He felt the pain in his chest a little more acutely and stopped to breathe.
His illness. How long did he really have? How much of a fight did he have left within him? He had been hoping he could go all out with Sasuke but now. It was not worth reflecting on what might have been, only what he could now do.
Certainly Naruto alone could not defeat the Akatsuki. He was too much of a subtle specialist to ever defeat an S-ranked shinobi alone. No. Naruto would think his way around this problem.
Itachi knew how hard it would be for him. Each member of Akatsuki was different and challenging, and the fact the pairs tended to cover one another's weaknesses was enough. Deidara was probably the weakest of the team. Sasori too was vulnerable alone.
Who would go next?
Certainly this was a setback for Akatsuki. S-ranked missing in with suitable skills were hard to come by, especially ones who would want to join a group. Still, there was at least one he could think of who would join.
His mind cast back to the fateful night he had slaughtered his own flesh and blood.
The other figure in the mask that had helped him. He was certainly something different. Itachi could never confirm, but he suspected he had been behind the attack of the Nine-Tails as well. That had been terrifying, even for him.
No. That man was out there somewhere, he was dangerous too. It was when he would show up that was the question in Itachi's mind.
He heard the footsteps behind him and sensed the figure coming. It was the Leader.
"Itachi. Zetsu had returned from Konoha territory."
Itachi didn't turn.
"I take it the news is not good."
"Deidara is dead, shot by a crossbow user. Sasori was crushed by the Hokage."
Itachi nodded.
"Deidara did not explode the city?"
"It appears he was distracted and enraged by the bow user, then lured into a forest."
Itachi smiled. That told him a lot about Naruto. He was committed to his work, and would gladly die for a cause. That was certainly useful for him. Not only that, but he had been the one to finish Deidara. That was interesting too.
"We saw the battle."
Zetsu rose from the floor next to the leader. Itachi quirked an eyebrow at the two tone man. Zetsu was not normal, that much was for sure.
"The crossbow user very interesting he is skilled yet not strong. He is somewhat like you Itachi-kun. Yet we sensed another signature near him. So weak, so small, but possibly that of a tailed beast."
Itachi mentally cursed Naruto for his foolishness. Whilst he could not have sensed Zetsu in the heat of battle, why had he attacked? He knew that they were looking for him. Curse his dutiful nature to Konoha. Unto death it seemed.
"Surely that is wrong for a Junchuuriki. Would they not be more likely to be a force based fighter with large chakra reserves?"
Zetsu never stopped smiling, at least on one half of his face. The other remained impassive.
"It is odd. We are unsure. He merits..."
"Further observation."
The leader finished the sentence for him.
"Zetsu will be around Konoha, if he leaves on a mission, then he will find out more about him. Until then we focus on the remaining Junchuuriki. The two-tails has been captured and is on its way in, prepare for the sealing. Our newest member has arrived also."
Itachi nodded. He hadn't expected any other outcome really. The Zombie brothers were odd but frighteningly efficient. They had yet to fail a mission. That their target was captured now was expected.
He knew he had to act sooner rather than later. Somehow he would bring down more members of his organisation. He would have to find a way of getting the Immortal One's killed.
He grimaced as he concluded what he would have to do.
He would make Akatsuki fight itself.